Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Tor in "The Black Valley" (St. John;1954)

Industry legend Joe Kubert is best known for his classic work on DC Comics war series like Sgt. Rock and for reintroducing silver age fans to Hawkman, but he started out in the golden age on strips like the Seven Soldiers of Victory in Leading Comics. In 1953, Kubert as managing editor for St. John, along with writer Norman Maurer, created the enduring character Tor, a prehistoric-human who debuted in the comic 1,000,000 Years Ago #1 (Sept.1953). Today, Tor stars in an exciting "Panel-Rama" feature titled "The Black Valley" from Tor #3 (May 1954). Trivia: Norman Maurer was Moe (The Three Stooges) Howard's son in law. Maurer also wrote and drew various "Stooge" comic books from the 50's to the 70's. The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or the creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.Enjoy!

How it all began ....

In 1933, publishers at Eastern Color Press, intent to make better use of their printing equipment (which frequently sat idle between jobs), came up with the idea of printing an 8-page comic section that could be folded down from the large broadsheet to a smaller 9-inch by 12-inch format. The result was the first modern comic book. Containing reprints of newspaper comic strips, this experimental comic book titled "Funnies On Parade" was given away for free. It proved so popular that the following year Eastern published "Famous Funnies" and took the bold step of selling the comic for ten cents through chain stores. The enterprise was a smashing success and Eastern began churning out numerous reprints on a monthly basis. Other publishers, eager to get in on the profits, jumped on the bandwagon and the comic book industry was born!